Julia Tavalaro

Julia Tavalaro , b. Horwat (born January 31, 1935 in Inwood (New York) , † December 19, 2003 ) was an American writer . In 1966 she suffered two strokes and has since been silent and almost completely paralyzed. Tavalaro published poems in magazines and in 1997 with Richard Tayson her autobiography Look up for yes , which was also translated into German .

biography

Julia Horwat grew up in a neighborhood of New York that is mainly inhabited by Italians . Her parents were the from Hungary originating Joseph Horwat (* 1908 in Budapest ), a former racing driver, who ran an auto repair shop, and his wife Mary Augustine (1901 * in Krakow ), whose parents are from Germany and Poland came. Julia had three younger siblings, Joan (* 1937), Midge (* 1940) and Joey (* 1943). The family lived in rather poor conditions, especially since Joseph Horwat was an alcoholic. He also beat his children, but was still Julia's great role model. As she wrote in her autobiography, she admired his combative spirit. Her dream was to follow in her father's footsteps and become a racing driver.

In 1955 Julia and Joan Horwat left their parents' home and moved to Far Rockaway . In the same year Julia met a soldier named Jim, whom she married in February 1956. Her parents did not agree with Jim, and Joseph Horwat did not attend the wedding. They criticized Jim for putting too much emphasis on his appearance. So he regularly trained with dumbbells. Julia Tavalaro later wrote that she did not love Jim, but only felt physically attracted to him. She became pregnant that year, and Jim blamed her for not wanting children. There was a breakup. However, the pregnancy ended in stillbirth.

On November 8, 1963, Julia married for the second time. Her husband was George Tavalaro , of Italian descent , a golf instructor who grew up in their Inwood neighborhood. Julia and George Tavalaro had a daughter, Judy (born May 26, 1965 in Far Rockaway).

On August 6, 1966, Julia Tavalaro suffered a stroke at her home in Inwood that paralyzed the left side of her body. She was taken to the hospital, where she suffered another stroke five days later. This now also paralyzed the right half of her body. Since she could no longer speak and could only move her head, she was thought to be comatose. She was taken to the Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island , where she was barely treated like a human for six years. Nurses called them, among other things, "vegetables". She couldn't make herself noticed. Her sister Joan and her mother were sure that Julia Tavalaro was able to perceive and think about her surroundings, but the staff were not convinced by them. During this time, she suffered several pneumonia and, according to doctors, was very close to death several times.

The turning point in Julia Tavalaro's life was the visit of speech therapist Arlene Kraat in 1973. She asked her simple questions, to which Tavalaro could answer by moving her eyes. Then her situation improved. Kraat had proven that Tavalaro was still able to think and communicate. She was treated like a human again and looked after by Kraat, occupational therapist Joyce Sabari and a psychologist, among others . In the following years she received, among other things, a wheelchair that she could control herself using a switch, and a special writing implement.

From 1987 Tavalaro took part in writing courses organized by the Very Special Arts organization founded by Jean Kennedy Smith . The first courses were directed by the writer Sharon Olds . In 1991 she met Richard Tayson through one of these courses , who helped her write her autobiography. Due to the success of the book, she was able to leave the hospital in 1998 and move to a care facility for the disabled, where she was able to live relatively independently for the last years of her life.

Tavalaro's poems were published in Breakthrough , the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , among others, from the early 1990s .

literature

• Julia Tavalaro and Richard Tayson: To the bottom of the ocean , Freiburg 1998
• Joyce Sabari: Julia speaks with her eyes , in: Deborah Labovitz (Ed.): Ordinary Miracles , 2002

Web links

• Article in the Los Angeles Times on December 17, 1995